The Australian Small Business Show
Jun 13, 2026 · 21 min · 11 segments
Join the waitlist for The Australian Small Business Show Club by clicking here. If you're wondering what Fair Work changes are coming from 1 July…
Kristy Lee BillettHost
Matt HeighwayHostAnd this is not an unusual time of year for us to see changes in this space.
The 1st of July, every year we have changes coming through from Fair Work.
So the first thing and probably the biggest one that's going to impact most businesses is the increase in all of the award minimum rates of pay.
So what happens is every year, the Fair Work Commission reviewed the national minimum wage.
And they look at whether the national minimum wage really reflects what should be the case.
And they also look at all of the awards and the minimum award rates and look at whether they're going to apply the same or a different increase or any increase at all.
So they handed down their decision in early June and the national minimum wage will be increasing to $26.44 an hour or $1,004.90 a week.
And the commission in their decision did cite all the things that you would expect, the increased cost of living, inflation and CPI increases being at about the 4.8% to the June quarter, the uncertainty thanks to the conflict in the Middle East and the increase in things like petrol prices and the flow-on effect that's having.
So all of the sensible things that we would expect them to consider have gone into this.
Unfortunately, this does, though, put more pressure on businesses, particularly small businesses who pay staff.
National minimum wage increase is one thing, although there's not many people who are covered or are paid the national minimum wage.
So the Fair Work Commission announced that from the 1st of July 2026, all award minimum rates of pay would be increasing by 4.75%, which is a pretty decent increase.

So if you're looking at, we're going to get to the episode in regards to increasing prices, you know, these numbers you're talking about are one of the factors that you kind of think about when you're increasing your prices.
And this is not an unusual time of year for us to see changes in this space.
The 1st of July, every year we have changes coming through from Fair Work.
So the first thing and probably the biggest one that's going to impact most businesses is the increase in all of the award minimum rates of pay.
So what happens is every year, the Fair Work Commission reviewed the national minimum wage.
And they look at whether the national minimum wage really reflects what should be the case.
And they also look at all of the awards and the minimum award rates and look at whether they're going to apply the same or a different increase or any increase at all.
So they handed down their decision in early June and the national minimum wage will be increasing to $26.44 an hour or $1,004.90 a week.
And the commission in their decision did cite all the things that you would expect, the increased cost of living, inflation and CPI increases being at about the 4.8% to the June quarter, the uncertainty thanks to the conflict in the Middle East and the increase in things like petrol prices and the flow-on effect that's having.
So all of the sensible things that we would expect them to consider have gone into this.
Unfortunately, this does, though, put more pressure on businesses, particularly small businesses who pay staff.
National minimum wage increase is one thing, although there's not many people who are covered or are paid the national minimum wage.
So the Fair Work Commission announced that from the 1st of July 2026, all award minimum rates of pay would be increasing by 4.75%, which is a pretty decent increase.

So if you're looking at, we're going to get to the episode in regards to increasing prices, you know, these numbers you're talking about are one of the factors that you kind of think about when you're increasing your prices.
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